By Samuel Miller
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America
WASHINGTON D.C., United States of America – A US Federal Court of Appeals has ruled bulk collection of telecommunication records by the National Security Agency to be illegal. A three-judge panel in New York held Thursday the scope of the program goes beyond the authority granted by the Patriot Act, which expanded government surveillance and data collection following the September 11th Terrorist Attacks.
Judges did not, however, address whether the bulk collection program violated the Constitution.
The 97-page ruling held that Section 215, a provision of the U.S.A. Patriot Act, cannot be legitimately interpreted to allow bulk collection of domestic calling records. The court didn’t rule on arguments raised by the American Civil Liberties Union that the program violates constitutional free-speech guarantees and protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.
The judges also declined to issue a court order blocking the program as Congress weighs changes to surveillance laws.
Judge Gerard Lynch, writing for a unanimous panel, said allowing the government to gather data in a blanket fashion was not consistent with the statute used to carry out the program.
“The interpretation urged by the government would require a drastic expansion of the term ‘relevance,’ not only with respect to § 215,” said Lynch, “but also as that term is construed for purposes of subpoenas, and of a number of national security-related statutes, to sweep further than those statutes have ever been thought to reach.”
The House appears ready to pass a bill which would end the government’s bulk collection of phone records. The bill, known as the U.S.A. Freedom Act, would replace the authority under Section 215 with a new program that would preserve the N.S.A.’s ability to analyze links between callers to hunt for terrorists, but keep bulk records in the hands of phone companies, rather than with the N.S.A., as is currently the situation.
Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, took to the Senate floor Thursday to fiercely defend the program and criticize the USA Freedom Act.
“According to the CIA, had these authorities been in place more than a decade ago, they would have likely prevented 9/11,” McConnell said. McConnell also criticized the USA Freedom Act as a measure that will “neither keep us safe, nor protect our privacy.”
Following the leaks by former N.S.A. intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden, the N.S.A. has come under heightened scrutiny for its surveillance methods.
After the September 11th attacks, President George W. Bush authorized the N.S.A. to begin a group of surveillance and data-collection programs, without obeying statutory limits on government spying. In 2006, the administration persuaded a court judge to issue an order approving the bulk phone records component, based on the idea that Section 215 could be interpreted as authorizing bulk collection.
Section 215 is set to expire June 1st.
For more information, please see:
BBC US & Canada — NSA phone data collection ‘illegal’, US court rules — 7 May 2015
Bloomberg — NSA’s Bulk Collection of Telephone Data Is Ruled Illegal — 7 May 2015
New York Times — N.S.A. Collection of Bulk Call Data Is Ruled Illegal — 7 May 2015
POLITICO — Appeals court rules that NSA phone surveillance program is illegal — 7 May 2015
